Posted on 04/29/2017 6:28:39 PM PDT by marshmallow
It is the conservatives who want an amicable schism. The Bishops and superintendents hold this out as a carrot. But the supers and bishops will never allow a schism, because they will not allow the money to be divided.
smh = shaking my head
It was still WSCS in our town until the late 60s, or even after. Perhaps the UMW thing differed from one congregation to another.
I did some research a few years ago and found that the deep funding amassed for missionaries attracted some bad characters in the 1920s who had become enamored of the Soviet Revolution of 1917, went to South America as Methodist missionaries, got all involved in the poisonous marxist “liberation theology” claptrap, and returned to America exercising influence over the national headquarters and later the seminaries. It took decades for this poison to seep down to the parishes and pews, but seep it did.
By the late 60s, Wesley’s methodical “pursuit of Christian perfection” was out the door, but many congregants stayed on in no small part because Methodism was so long established in America by then that they had multi-generational ties in the church, previously-purchased family grave sites next to a church and so on. Leaving was like a divorce for me, one of those kinds of people.
Even recently I took my grown child to see the now-moldering building of a once-grand Methodist church where I as a chlld, my parents, grandparents and one set of great-grandparents attended. It was like viewing a corpse, since the place built to hold 600 now has 19 active members.
Kyrie eleison x 40
Boy, is it ever different now!
I have lived in or near large East coast cities all my long life, and Methodism started in Baltimore in the 1700s, becoming strong there and radiatiing outward, so the “advances” of marxism and Democrat politics took over our conferences from Philly down to DC first, no doubt. Long, slow, heartbreaking decline.
My problem was that I thought everybody lived this way as a norm. Growing up in small country towns where my parents were loved was a gift that I had only begun to appreciate was thee standard deviations beyond what really exists only camr to me later in life.
I am so sad that our society knows so little about it, that it isn't even wanted, let alone longed for.
I'm glad you had a taste of it. Our soldiers have bravely died for it and for their pals, that someone might have it. Methodism played quite a large role in settling and forming our American kind of life. I cannot fathom why any of its current members want it changed. Like Hillary, for instance.
Oh, your beautiful post tears at my heart, imardmd1. I remember after leaving home that I went to the city and entered the business world like a lamb to the slaughter, not understanding that most people are not like the socially conservative, caring and modest Methodist Episcopals I grew up with. Somehow I missed hearing about the necessity for being wise as a serpent.
I have tried to explain to my son what it was like to grow up in a Christian culture, and how sad I am not to be able to give the same to him in his generation. I couldn’t even do it in my own household when he was young. When he was starting grad school, I remember saying to him, “I don’t know whether it’s better to have a wonderful society in childhood and watch it steadily disintegrate in your adult years, or whether it’s better to see the destruction around you when you’re young and be one of the ones to buildi it back up.”
The first thing is what I experienced. The second thing is his challenge.
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